Bali-hoo

Talking the talk on climate change

That global warming is a threat to life on earth
is a message that most people now seem to accept. And in December the UN
organised climate change talks in Bali, as a successor to the Kyoto
protocol of 1997. Although politicians congratulated themselves on an
‘historic breakthrough’, what was really achieved? MANNY THAIN reports.

ONE WORD NOT on the agenda at December’s UN climate
change talks in Bali was failure. That may depend on the definition of
the word. But, such was the level of pre-talk hype, and such is the
concern and anger of people worldwide at the effects of global warming,
that immense pressure was exerted on participating government
representatives. They could not be seen to leave empty handed. So they
talked late into a final, extra night and cobbled together yet another
worthless deal.

At the end of exhaustive talks which saw the
dramatic public breakdown of Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate official,
the Bali agreement ‘commits’ countries to two more years of negotiation.
This was not a summit of action. These were talks about what issues
would be talked about at future meetings.

Bali set a 2009 deadline for an agreement to cut
emissions of greenhouse gases to combat climate change. In the meantime,
measurements of emissions reduction from pilot forestry projects will
inform an attempt at a plan for sustaining the world’s forests. It was
noted that poor countries need more money to access green technologies.
Needless to say, how this might happen was not discussed. The aim is to
strike a deal in Copenhagen in December 2009 (via Poznan this year),
supposedly coming into force in 2013.

Someone had the idea of calling it a ‘road map’. And
like George W Bush’s road map for the Middle East it will be a complete
failure, and result in massive human misery. The only way of averting
catastrophic climate change is by fundamentally altering the way the
world economic system operates. So long as the driving force remains the
search for profit, the planet’s resources will continue to be ruthlessly
exploited for short-term gain.

There is an overriding need for an alternative way
of doing things, one which is based on the sustainable use of our
precious resources, collectively organised and managed by the majority,
with the working class in the leading role by virtue of the fact that it
produces and distributes the world’s goods. On that basis, a democratic,
socialist economic plan could be implemented which took account of
people’s needs internationally, as well as the needs of the planet, its
environment and ecological systems.

Copenhagen 2009, on the other hand, is designed to
be the successor to the impotent Kyoto protocol – agreed initially in
1997 and ratified under the Marrakech accords of November 2001 – which
runs to 2012. Kyoto, in turn, followed the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change signed in January 1992 at the second earth summit held in
Rio de Janeiro. From Rio to Bali, around the world in 25 years for
nothing – not so much a carbon footprint as a boot in the face of life
on earth.

US under pressure

THIS TIME ROUND, 15,000 government representatives,
activists and journalists attended, including a thousand carbon traders
and investors. In doing so they emitted around 100,000 tonnes of carbon
dioxide – just under the annual emissions of Malawi or Chad. The UN
calculated that travel to and from the event equalled that of running
20,000 cars for a year. Angus Friday, chair of the Alliance of Small
Islands, many of which may disappear as sea levels rise, said: "We are
ending up with something so watered down there was no need for 12,000
people to gather here in Bali. We could have done that by email". (The
Observer, 16 December) Of the 188 countries attending, only Burma did
not sign up.

Throughout the negotiations, US representatives
opposed any reference to quantifiable and binding measures. So, no firm
targets were included in the final statement. This is as expected. In
May, Bush had attempted to undermine any global deal in talks with the
world’s 16 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. This was condemned by
environmental groups, commentators and governments, and international,
mass anger was transmitted to world powers at the G8 summit in Rostock.
Bush acquiesced.

At the meeting, the role of the US administration
(Bush in particular), in consistently blocking progress on climate
change, was publicly denounced. There was a battle between the US and
the Group of 77, a 130-strong bloc of developing nations. In a rare
public rebuke, the US delegation was roundly booed after the delegate
from Papua New Guinea suggested that the US should get out of the way if
it is unprepared to take a lead on climate change.

Emboldened by this shift, European Union
representatives tried to put forward a target that rich countries should
cut emissions by 25-40% by 2020. Canada, Russia and Japan, which had
started out against the targets, eventually went along with the EU. But
it was a red line the White House would not cross. And, within hours of
the talks ending, the US administration began voicing ‘serious concerns’
that developing countries had been let off too lightly.

Although those putting a positive spin on the Bali
talks point to the fact that the US signed up, the only reason it felt
able to do so was that the wording had been so diluted over the course
of negotiations as to be innocuous. Not for the first time, the British
delegation has been credited with backing US foreign/global policy all
the way. An editorial in the Independent on Sunday (16 December)
reported direct contact between the White House and Downing Street
during the talks to maintain this support. Britain’s environment
secretary, Hilary Benn, denies the charge.

Echoes of Kyoto

NONE OF THIS is astounding news, of course. In
December 1997, the US delegation at Kyoto was led by Al Gore – last
year’s joint winner of a Nobel prize for environmental campaigning – who
ensured that no deal would impose harsh controls on big-business
interests in the fossil fuel and automobile industries. As in Bali, the
hardnosed stance of the US administration, then under Bill Clinton,
meant that negotiations dragged on long into the final night, as long as
it took to render any wording ineffectual. At that time, the EU was
calling for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 15% below 1990 levels by
2010. Gore drove that down to 5.2% by 2012. Carbon emissions spewed
across the globe by international flights and shipping were excluded on
the pretext that they are not ‘owned’ by any country.

Although a signatory, the US never ratified the
Kyoto protocol. It was voted down in the senate, unanimously. When the
US withdrew from the protocol, that limited its scope to 40% of global
greenhouse gas emissions. On a world scale, therefore, the commitment to
reduce emissions to 5.2% represented a meagre 2% reduction.

Annex B of the Kyoto protocol allows states to
allocate carbon dioxide emission rights to its most polluting
installations. The company then has to ensure that the quantity of
carbon dioxide it emits falls within its quota, and can offset emissions
by funding projects such as wind farms, alternative fuels, planting
trees, etc. Developing countries can also back such projects to attract
foreign capital. These are known as ‘certified emissions reductions’ (CERs)
and actually increase the amount of carbon ‘currency’ on the global
market. CERs can be used to meet Kyoto ‘commitments’ or sold on the
market. These mechanisms are, in effect, licences to emit greenhouse
gases.

They are also the basis for the EU’s emissions
trading system. Martin Wolf in the Financial Times (4 December 2007)
summed up their impact: "The vaunted European emissions trading system
has been more a way of transferring quota rent to a few big emitters
than an effective means of emissions control. The UK government has, for
example, been honest enough to admit that large electricity generators
gained £1.2 billion in quota rent for 2005 alone".

Linking honesty with the British government is
pushing it, but this is a clear indictment of the kind of ‘market
mechanisms’ peddled by big business, raised at international climate
summits, and which all too often find their way into the environmental
movement as well. They are massive subsidies to big business, negligible
in terms of tackling global warming and ultimately paid out of taxation,
the bulk of which comes out of the pockets of the working class.

Nonetheless, John Prescott, Britain’s environment
secretary at the time, heralded Kyoto: "This is a truly historic deal
which will help curb the problems of climate change. For the first time
it commits developed countries to make legally binding cuts in their
emissions". Depressingly little has changed. Not to be outdone, Benn
called Bali "an historic breakthrough and a huge step forward. For the
first time ever, all the world’s nations have agreed to negotiate on a
deal to tackle dangerous climate change". (The Guardian, 17 December)

EU hypocrisy

THE EU BLOC’S political posturing at environmental
summits belies the activity of the individual states when the cameras
are off. Pointing the finger at the US, particularly the current
administration – a legitimate but very easy target given how much it is
loathed worldwide – diverts attention from its own failings. In the EU,
emissions were cut by an average 2% a year from 1997-2004, instead of
the 8% a year target in the Kyoto protocol. In the last recorded year,
2004-05, emissions rose. (The Observer, 16 December)

At Bali, European states took centre stage. Behind
the scenes, however, they are battling to water down proposals they fear
will ‘damage their economies’. In other words, their big-business
cronies are squealing that profits will be hit if strict rules are
applied. The French and German governments are reportedly working
together against European Commission proposals on greenhouse gas
emissions.

The Economist (20 December) reported a European
Commission announcement that transport-related carbon dioxide emissions
in the EU grew by a third between 1990 and 2005 and now constitute 27%
of the EU total. Cars are responsible for about half of that.

At present Europe’s cars emit an average of about
160 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre (g/km). A few years ago, the
industry agreed a voluntary target of 140g/km by 2008, requiring an
annual reduction of 3% a year. Current ‘progress’ is crawling along at
1.5%. The commission now says it wants fleet-average emissions from new
cars sold in the EU to be no higher than 130g/km by 2012, with another
10g/km reduction from other sources, such as low-resistance tyres, more
efficient air-conditioning and greater use of biofuels (by no means an
environmentally friendly alternative).

Intensive lobbying by BMW, Mercedes, EU industry
commissioner, Günter Verheugen, and German chancellor, Angela Merkel,
however, has already resulted in the commission agreeing to a ‘weight
dispensation’ which will allow makers of heavier cars to produce higher
fleet-average emissions.

Real power

FOLLOWING BALI, THE European Commission announced
some new measures on 22 January. It wants to make companies pay for
emission permits instead of the free allocation or heavy subsidy which
exist today. Once again working-class families will be made to pick up
the bill as EU officials expect electricity prices to rise by 10-15% as
a direct result of this measure. (Financial Times, 20 January) There are
also emissions targets for individual states, biofuel standards to be
introduced, as well as allowing states to subsidise renewable energy.

The stated aim is to reduce EU greenhouse gas
emissions by 20% from their 1990 levels by 2020, and to ensure that 20%
of energy comes from renewables. Even if met, this would have no real
impact on global warming. (As an aside, it is conceivable that a
protracted global economic slowdown would curb greenhouse gas emissions
due to a fall-off in economic activity. Perhaps some targets could even
be met under such a scenario! However, that would be a purely accidental
by-product of capitalist crisis, a temporary effect which would be
quickly negated with a future cyclical upturn.)

Yet already, fierce resistance is building from
European big business in the form of the European Roundtable of
Industrialists (ERT) which represents around 50 of Europe’s biggest
industrial companies, with sales around £1,200 billion (€1,600bn,
$2,300bn). That is real power. The ERT is complaining that the measures
would make European industry uncompetitive on the world market. On the
basis of capitalist economics, of course, it has a point. But this news
forms part of the mountain of evidence of the incompatibility of big
business and environmental sustainability. Measures which could reduce
greenhouse gas emissions inevitably hit profits and are rejected by big
business, which wields colossal economic and political power. The
expensive research required to develop viable, long-term solutions is
also incompatible with the drive for short-term profits.

In the meantime, working-class and poor people are
made to pay, financially and through the direct effects of climate
change. In the above-quoted article, Martin Wolf writes: "Poor people
are far less able to cope with climatic disasters than rich ones. But
this, if we are honest, is why the rich are unlikely to make the huge
reductions in emissions the [Human Development] report demands. The
powerful will continue to act without much consideration for the poor.
This, after all, is a world that spends ten times as much on defence
(much of it useless) as on aid to poor countries". (Financial Times, 4
December 2007)

Systemic failure

TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE will require a
root-and-branch shift in production and distribution methods away from
the profit motive. A socialist plan, democratically organised by workers
and the majority of the population, is required to implement policies
which are geared to long-term sustainability.

Each new survey and analysis emphasises the scale of
the problem. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
published its most recent report in three parts between February and
June 2007 and set the backdrop for Bali. It warned that emissions have
to peak in the next ten to 15 years and then be drastically reduced to
avoid a 3-4.5C rise in temperature this century.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) produced its
World Energy Outlook in November. It points out that if governments
continue as they are, the world’s energy needs will be more than 50%
higher in 2030 than today. Developing countries will account for 74%
(China and India 45%) of the growth in demand. Fossil fuels are forecast
to account for 84% of the increase in global energy consumption,
exacerbating global warming. Carbon dioxide emissions are projected to
jump by 57% between 2005 and 2030, the US, China, Russia and India
contributing two-thirds of this increase. (Financial Times, 13 November
2007)

In December, the Human Development Report noted that
atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are rising at a rate of 1.9
parts per million a year; over the past ten years the annual growth rate
of emissions has been 30% faster than the average for the past 40 years;
if the rate of emissions increase continues in line with current trends,
the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might be double
pre-industrial levels by 2035.

While recognising the severe limitations of the
measures proposed at Bali and other summits, some may argue that at
least something is being done. But greenhouse gas levels are rising and
global warming is accelerating. This fiddling while the planet burns
does not represent progress. It is not a start. It is a systemic
failure. It requires systemic change.